Tender Stranger by Diana Palmer

think about never seeing her again.
    “Thank about it for a while,” he said finally. “For a few weeks, until I get back.”
    “Back?” She turned, not caring if he saw her pain. Tears bit at her eyelids and she felt sick all over.
    Oh, God, it hurt to see her like this! He glared toward the horizon, jamming his hands into his pockets. He’d never seen that expression on a woman’s face in his life. He’d come to the brink of death with cool disdain more times than he cared to remember, and now the look on a woman’s face terrified him.
    She fought to get herself under control. She took a slow, deep breath. “I won’t change my mind,” she said, sure now that it would be suicide to stay with him.
    “All the same, I’ll be in touch.”
    “Suit yourself.”
    He met her eyes, searching them. “I’m already committed to this job. I can’t back out.” It was the first time in years that he’d explained himself, he realized.
    “I don’t want to know,” she said firmly. “You have your life, and I have mine. If you’d told me in the very beginning, I wouldn’t have come near you.”
    “I think I knew that,” he said softly. He sketched her with his eyes, memorizing her. “Take care of yourself.”
    “I always have.” She let her eyes love him one last time. She ached already at their parting. It would be like losing a limb. “You take care of yourself, too.”
    “Yes.”
    She stared at her wedding ring, and he saw the thought in her eyes.
    “Leave it on,” he said gently. “I—would like to think that you were wearing my ring.”
    The tears burst from her eyes. She didn’t even look at him again, she turned and broke into a run, suitcases and all, crying so hard that she could hardly see where she was going. Behind her he stood quietly on the apron, alone, watching until she was out of sight.

Chapter Seven
    N othing was the same. The first day she was home Dani went into the bookstore the same as always, but her life was changed. Harriett Gaynor, her small, plump friend, gave her odd looks, and Dani was almost certain that Harriett didn’t believe a word of the story her employer told her about the Mexican holiday. Then the next day the papers hit the stands.
    “It’s true!” Harriett burst out, small and dark-eyed, her black hair in tight curls around her elfin face. “It’s all here in the paper, about the hijacking, look!”
    Dani grimaced as she looked down at the newspaper Harriett had spread over the counter. There was a picture of the pilot, and a blurred one of the uninjured hijacker being carried off the plane. There wasn’t a picture of Dutch, but she hadn’t expected to see one. He seemed quite good at dodging the press.
    “Here’s something about the man who overpowered the hijacker….” Harriett frowned and read, catching her breath at the vivid account. She looked up at Dani. “You did that?”
    “He said they would have asked for automatic weapons once we were in Miami,” Dani said quietly.
    Harriett put the paper down. “A professional mercenary.” She stared at her best friend. “I don’t believe it. Didn’t you ask what he did before you married him?”
    “If you saw him, you wouldn’t be surprised that I didn’t,” Dani told her. She turned away. She didn’t want to talk about Dutch. She wanted to forget. Even now, he was on his way to another conflict….
    “No man is that good-looking,” Harriett said. “Not even Dave.” Dave, a pleasant man, wasn’t half the scrapper his pint-size wife was. “By the way, Mrs. Jones called to thank you for her autographed books.”
    “She’s very welcome. It was nice, getting to meet some of the authors at the autographing.” She checked the change in the cash register as they started to open the shop.
    “Where is he now?” Harriett asked suddenly.
    “Getting a good lawyer, I hope,” Dani said, laughing even though it hurt to say it. “We’re setting a new record for short marriages. One